With Trustpair, validate vendor legitimacy in 190 countries and boost team efficiency through automation. Take action against vendor fraud, now.
Calls, counter-calls, emails, data searches: manual vendor account validations performed by financial teams do not provide sufficient protection against payment fraud. Manual, time-consuming, and highly fallible, a single vendor account validation takes over 30 minutes on average. With Trustpair:
Verifying account ownership internationally is not a simple task for Finance teams. In addition to manual controls and the use of various data sources, many specific tools only allow domestic validations.
With Trustpair, access automated instant account validations worldwide and guarantee international vendor data quality and legitimacy.
Account validation is used to validate that the account you send funds to is the one you think it is. It verifies both the validity and ownership of bank accounts by checking the company or person’s information is valid (company identity, localization, etc), checking the bank account associated is real, and checking that both sets of information match.
In the US, NACHA oversees account verification processes and sets up the rules for the ACH network. If you truly want a secure payment chain, account validation should happen automatically and throughout the entire procure-to-pay process. Many businesses only check vendor legitimacy manually, at the first use of the bank account or when the bank account information or supplier status changes.
Automated account validation is crucial for preventing errors, mitigating fraud risks, and ensuring compliance with financial regulations.
Legal Risks:
Failing to verify accounts can lead to non-compliance with US laws such as Nacha, KYC, AML, and SOX. This may result in corporate fines and legal issues during audits, especially for publicly traded companies.
Operational Risks:
Without account verification, businesses face increased chances of errors in banking details and transactions. These mistakes can damage supplier relationships and often result in irreversible fund transfers.
Fraud Risks:
Lack of account validation exposes businesses to various fraud schemes. Common techniques include vendor fraud, phishing attacks, and CEO impersonation. Scammers may use spoofing, false invoices, or network hacking to commit fraud.
Automated account validation wipes out fraud risks throughout the P2P.
It checks the legitimacy of vendors and their banking data throughout the entire payment chain – onboarding, vendor data changes, before payment campaigns, etc. This ensures 100% of data reliability and wipes out fraud and error risks, bringing peace of mind to finance teams.
On top of this, it boosts your team’s efficiency.
Manual checks of vendor banking data (by email, text message, callbacks, etc) take up at least 30 minutes for one supplier. With automated instant validation, results are instant. Team resources are no longer drained and time-consuming tasks are replaced. On top of that, collaborating and interacting on one single platform breaks down silos and empowers sensible decision-making
Confidently validate vendor bank accounts globally and validate their legitimacy across 190 countries thanks to the largest banking data sources network.
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Comply with regulations
Regulatory authorities are here for a reason. Nacha account validation requirements ensure that you have the correct bank details to charge your clients for example. They also provide resources and documentation for doing account validation the correct way.
The same goes for the KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) frameworks, which apply to certain high-risk industries like insurance.
Regulatory compliance makes sure standards are met across industries.
Abiding by them means protecting your business from a potential security breach, money laundering, or terrorism funding. It also protects your consumers’ sensitive information, which in turn leads to a more trusting relationship between you.
Standardize your processes
Standardizing your account validation is key for consistency across your company. Account validation is a business process like any other – it needs to be streamlined in order to be efficient. The way you go about this exactly depends on your organization.
Have a look at where you’re at now, and think about how you could make your actual process more effective. You might need to involve more people in it, simplify it, officialize one process for the whole company, communicate more regularly, and so on.
One thing is sure, however: you need to systematically check the financial information of your third parties – especially for overseas suppliers! Checking a merchant when you create its’ record in your database is a first step but it’s not enough: you need to ensure controls are done systematically during the supplier lifecycle.
That’s why it’s important that account validation be part of your regular internal controls, and as such is communicated consistently in your company. It all leads to increased cybersecurity, as well as leaves an audit trail in case of external control.
Do your due diligence
Account validation is about more than meeting the standards of regulatory bodies. At its heart, it’s about ensuring that your company isn’t sending funds to scammers, hackers, terrorists, or any malicious person. It’s an essential addition to your current anti-fraud measures.
Strong account validation needs to be an integral part of your customer due diligence process. This means going beyond standard background checks and incorporating robust business process controls. You need to be sure you won’t be defrauded and fund illegal activities unknowingly.
Enhanced due diligence is possible thanks to Trustpair, which carries out systematic and automated checks. Our vendor data management system means you can trust that your account validation covers all the authentication details that you might otherwise miss with manual verification.
On top of being an Account Validation Service (or AVS), Trustpair will help you address risk management topics efficiently and globally.
Our platform has been designed with the end user in mind and offers intuitive ergonomics as well as comprehensive dashboards, workflows, and task centers.
The dashboards will help you balance your decisions when it comes to risky situations, by giving you a complete overview of merchant information and risk level.
Vendor evaluations are delivered almost instantaneously and can be triggered at any moment of the supplier lifecycle – not only when a new vendor is created. They are based on external banking data sources that provide all needed information – routing number, company status, account number, and so on.
On top of that, we send live warnings (by email message or a notification on the platform) as an additional response to any unusual or suspicious transaction – including an unusual amount or date – and block it preventively.
Routing numbers enable you to identify banks before transfers or on a check. Validating the ACH routing number is important before executing an ACH transfer to make sure you’re sending funds to the right beneficiary, avoiding mistakes or even fraud.
There are different methods to validate routing numbers like online tools or direct bank lists.
However, validating routing numbers isn’t enough to wipe out fraud. Even if the routing number is valid, it doesn’t mean the rest of the banking information is correct. Fraudsters could have opened an account in the same bank as the actual beneficiary to commit fraud under the radar. It’s important to check more information like the company’s address, country, etc
"Trustpair gives us more reliability and peace of mind. The financial director is more serene when it comes to approving the transfer order."
"With Trustpair’s verification methodology, it's no longer just a consistency check but an exact confirmation of the validity of the third party: there is no longer any risk."
"With Trustpair, we are able to automatically and quickly monitor our third parties and ensure the security of that very data over the long term."
“I would definitely recommend Trustpair to finance departments. It makes adding and modifying beneficiaries more reliable, without resorting to manual processes that are cumbersome, time-consuming and fallible.”
“The control process is simplified with the Trustpair solution, the Finance Department is reassured and, above all, it no longer needs to waste time performing manual checks to verify a supplier's bank details.”
"Trustpair adapts very well to the specifics of our market and our way of working. Several features are developed as we work together. That's a real plus."
"Trustpair has become more than a reflex; it has become an obligation. The team no longer validates an IBAN unless Trustpair has confirmed it to us."
Thanks to Trustpair, we’ve made a significant shift in our security processes and filled the gaps we needed to fill. Trustpair has proved to be a committed and trustful partner and we’ve appreciated the support and transparency.
We’ve gone from manual and time-consuming fraud controls to automated bank account validation done directly in SAP. The workload has been drastically reduced and payment security is now guaranteed.
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